Two clever sayings – each spotted a couple of years ago – have permanent places in my Hall of Fame.

Remember when everybody was talking non-stop about the Atkins Diet? One business gave a sly nod to the trend with amusing results. Arrow Fence Co., 318 Edgewood Ave., posted the following sign:

“Stop in and see our low-carb fences.”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve told people about that sign. Arrow really captured the contortions some marketing campaigns go through to tie their products to the latest craze.

Arrow’s sign was a one-hit wonder. But I’ve noticed on my morning commute that Ace Game Room Gallery at 2525 W. Jefferson Blvd. consistently makes me chuckle.

Ace, which sells pool tables and everything needed for game rooms, had the following gem posted the week before Mother’s Day:

“The woman gave birth to you … Doesn’t she deserve a new pool table?”

I laughed so hard at that sign that I’m surprised I didn’t swerve off the road. Heck, I laugh every time I think about it even two years later.

It reminds me of a story my parents like to tell about one year when my dad and older brother (he was about 5 at the time) got my mom a dishwasher and color TV for Mother’s Day. Sounds like two great gifts, right? Oh, they were. For Dad and Gary.

In those days, my mother would prepare dinner and eat with her husband and son before going off to her evening bookkeeping job. My dad and brother were left to clean up the dishes and pass the evening watching “Bonanza” or “Gunsmoke” or “The Rifleman.” So you can see who got to enjoy those gifts. I have a feeling any woman receiving a pool table for Mother’s Day might ask herself the same question about who’s going to get the most use out of it.
But I digress.

Over at Ace, owner Trudee Almashie takes the task of creating new sayings very seriously. But she tries to keep it light.

“Signs are boring if you don’t make them fun,” she said.

Almashie considered the existing sign a valuable bonus when she bought the West Jefferson building eight years ago. At that time, she was told, 30,000 cars passed the sign daily. By now, it could be more.

Not using the sign to reach out to those potential customers would be an opportunity wasted, Almashie said. “You have your own audience.”

Her personal favorites include:

“My boss told me to change the sign, so I did.” And: “There’s no chlorine in our pool.”

“It’s all meant as a joke,” she said. “It’s all just my personality. I’d never want to offend anybody.”
The store’s most successful sign was inspired by a real-life theft:
“We lost our truck. Have you seen it?”

A UPS driver found it within a day – almost too soon for Almashie’s liking. She loved the fact that people around town were looking for a truck with Ace Game Room’s logo on it. Now, that’s grass-roots marketing.

I asked my co-workers to share some of their favorite sign sightings. One saw this at Clara’s Pizza King at 321 W. State Blvd.:

“Scream till Daddy stops for pizza.” Wow! I wouldn’t want to be in that car. I’m not even sure I’d want to be behind that counter at Clara’s waiting on a family that followed the sign’s instructions.

Ace Radiator Inc. at 2319 Coliseum Blvd. W. has a sign, a colleague tells me, that “says something about being the best place in town to take a leak.”

That pretty much says it all, doesn’t it?

I’d love to hear from readers about the signs that have caught your eye and made you laugh. Let me hear from you. Call or e-mail me with the name of the business, the location and the saying. I’ll share the best ones with you in a couple of weeks.

Keep watching those signs!

By Sherry Slater
http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journalgazette/14183071.htm